[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 55 (Wednesday, April 21, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4067-S4068]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             EARTH DAY 1999

  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, today, as a part of the celebration of 
Earth Week, I join with my other colleagues who have come to the floor 
calling for a renewal of this body's longstanding bipartisan commitment 
to the Nation's environment. I am doing so because, following the 29th 
Earth Day celebration tomorrow, the Nation and the 106th Congress will 
begin planning to commemorate three decades of Earth Days this time 
next year.
  We need to begin now to shape and bring forward a positive 
environmental agenda which will earn the support of both political 
parties so that when the 30th Earth Day arrives, our actions to protect 
the environment will not be viewed as falling short of the mark.
  At the beginning of this Congress, I wrote to the majority leader and 
the Democratic leader with suggestions of legislative areas where I 
believe significant opportunities actually exist for bipartisan 
cooperation. Among the areas I highlighted was the environment; 
specifically, the protection of public lands, such as passing 
comprehensive natural resources funding legislation which would allow 
the States and the Federal Government to

[[Page S4068]]

protect our land resources, designating new wilderness areas on our 
public lands, and reforming environmentally harmful subsidies that 
damage our lands and also hurt the American taxpayer.
  I also think opportunities exist to try to work together to 
reauthorize several of our major environmental protection laws, such as 
Superfund, the Clean Water and Air Acts, and the Endangered Species 
Act. We have struggled with the reauthorization of these laws for 
several Congresses, and the time has come to look for ways to break the 
impasse on these very important issues.
  We have also struggled, frankly, with getting more Senators involved 
in environmental issues as well. Several of my colleagues have remarked 
that with the retirement last Congress of our colleague from Arkansas, 
Mr. Bumpers, we on the Democratic side of the aisle find ourselves 
having lost a consistent and persistent champion of the environment. 
Fortunately, we still have wonderful leaders, and I have been pleased 
to support the efforts of my Democratic colleagues, such as the Senator 
from Montana, Mr. Baucus, and the Senator from New Mexico, Mr. 
Bingaman, and many others of my colleagues who have stepped forward to 
take up these issues. But, frankly, Mr. President, none of us can do 
this alone.
  Not only are environmental issues by their nature complicated and 
technical, but they are critically important to the American people who 
overwhelmingly support environmental protection. We need Senators from 
both parties to take up these issues and move them forward, and we are 
having some bipartisan successes on environmental issues where Members 
are working together.
  For example, I will have the pleasure later this week of joining with 
my colleague, the Senator from Delaware, Mr. Roth, in being an original 
cosponsor of legislation to designate the coastal plain of the Arctic 
National Wildlife Refuge as a wilderness area. I have had the 
opportunity to be a cosponsor of this legislation since I joined the 
Senate in 1993.
  In addition, this week I was delighted when the junior Senator from 
Maine, Ms. Collins, decided to join me as a cosponsor of legislation I 
introduced to eliminate the percentage depletion allowance tax subsidy 
for mining on public lands subject to the 1872 mining law.

  Mr. President, part of the legacy of Earth Day is a commitment to 
bipartisanship, and a review of the history reveals that fact.
  For me, celebrations of Earth Day are always intertwined with 
thoughts of the day's founder, former Senator Gaylord Nelson from my 
home State of Wisconsin. I am extremely proud to hold the Senate seat 
he held with distinction from 1963 to 1981. Not only did Senator Nelson 
help to set aside a day for the Nation to think and learn more about 
the environment, he acted by using the power of his office to work with 
colleagues to protect the environment.
  Senator Nelson was a two-term Governor. During his gubernatorial 
tenure, the environment became a priority for the State of Wisconsin 
with the creation of the State's stewardship program, one of the 
important models for the Federal Land and Water Conservation Fund, 
putting Wisconsin far ahead in recreational opportunities for the 
general public.
  During his 18 years in the Senate, he saw, as he is still quick to 
remind me, great proenvironmental change under both Republican and 
Democratic administrations. The Senate created the Environment and 
Public Works Committee, passed the majority of our Federal 
environmental statutes with significant bipartisan support, and created 
the Environmental Protection Agency. Senator Nelson himself was the 
author of the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, which passed the Senate by a 
vote of 84-0. He was also the primary sponsor of the Apostle Islands 
National Lakeshore Act, one of northern Wisconsin's most beautiful 
areas, at which I spend a portion of my vacation time with my family 
every year.
  I am now the author of legislation to provide some improvements to 
Apostle Islands and to review these lands for their wilderness 
potential. In his 1969 book on the environment entitled ``America's 
Last Chance,'' Senator Nelson issued a political challenge which I find 
relevant today. He said:

       The number one domestic problem facing this country is the 
     threatened destruction of our natural resources and the 
     disaster which would confront mankind should such destruction 
     occur. There is a real question as to whether the nation, 
     which has spent some two hundred years developing an 
     intricate system of local, State and Federal Government to 
     deal with the public's problems, will be bold, imaginative 
     and flexible enough to meet this supreme test.

  I believe Senator Nelson meant two things by his challenge. Not only 
did he mean that government must act immediately and decisively to 
protect resources in crisis, but he also meant that politicians must 
maintain that commitment over the long term. A renewal of this body's 
commitment to work together to protect the environment, fully 
respecting the commitment former Members of the Senate have made to us 
by placing us in the position of being vigilant stewards of Federal 
environmental laws, is an appropriate way on the eve of Earth Day to 
celebrate the true nature of ecological stewardship.
  Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to be committed to that endeavor.
  I yield the floor.

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